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Professional Counselling & Coaching for Men & Young MenMon, 21 Jan 2019 07:45:29 +0000en-AUhourly1https://menstuff.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/favi.pngMenstuffhttps://menstuff.com.au
323252125100Tips For Making Good Decisionshttps://menstuff.com.au/2018/05/tips-for-making-good-decisions/
Sat, 05 May 2018 05:07:27 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1247
Many people find it difficult to make decisions. Here are some tips to making good decisions.

Identify as clearly as possible, the decision to be made

Do your homework. Find out as much as possible about the issue or issues
you have to decide on

Brainstorm to come up with different choices and to weigh up the most likely
outcomes of each of the choices. This may include consulting with others
whose input you value

Sometimes it can help to group the different choices into categories such as
most likely and least likely to be achieved

Try not to be swayed by what you think others expect of you. What others
want or expect may not be the same as what you want

Remember that in the end it is your decision, so it is important to think
carefully about what it is that you really want

Ultimately, your decision is something that you will have to live with and deal
with

]]>1247Tips For Challenging The Feeling That You Aren’t “Good Enough”https://menstuff.com.au/2018/04/tips-for-challenging-the-feeling-that-you-arent-good-enough/
Mon, 30 Apr 2018 05:07:07 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1245Many people feel that they are not “good enough”, But there are things we can do about this rather than just accepting it.

Realise that this feeling is just a feeling and is not an objective fact.

Avoid negative self-talk. You can train yourself to identify negative thoughts as
they occur

Learn to challenge your negative thoughts and replace them with more positive
thoughts

Focus on the positive and celebrate success and achievements in your life. Even
the smallest achievement is worth celebrating and will make you feel better

Remember to take care of yourself and ensure that you regularly do things that
you enjoy

Make use of your support networks. Spend time with friends or family who value
you and who will give you positive but honest feedback. Train yourself to accept
compliments and positive comments

Don’t forget that it is your life and not one else’s. No one can take away the
positive feelings you have about yourself

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University in Boston and the author of a new book that explores our emotional life. In her book, ‘How Emotions Are Made’, Barrett challenges the classical view that our emotions are hardwired to specific neurons in our brain that cause us to behave in a certain way.

This kind of thinking assumes that emotions just happen to us. Barrett argues that our emotions don’t just happen to us but are constructed in the moment by core systems in the body that affect the whole brain.

Our brains have evolved for the purpose of regulating the internal state of our body through a process called interoception, which monitors things like heart rate, metabolism, thirst and tiredness. The brain takes this raw data and makes sense of it based upon past experiences. Therefore, our brain is not simply reacting but constantly predicting what we are feeling and this according to Barrett directly affects our emotional state.

Barrett suggests that we can have much more control over our emotions and have the ability to change our experience of them by becoming more emotionally intelligent.

So how do we do this?

By developing emotional granularity. This simply means finding new words to communicate our emotions. You can think of it like wine tasting. Rather than being able to enjoy a shiraz, cabernet merlot or pinot noir we learn to distinguish between the subtle flavours of cranberry, prune and red plum.

The more words we have to describe our emotional states then the brain can construct finer distinctions so that we can better tailor our emotions to each situation.

To enhance our emotional intelligence Barrett suggests reading widely, especially fiction, watching plays, going to the movies and listening to music. These experiences allow us to immerse ourselves in the world of language and emotions, which all enhance our emotional intelligence.

The next important step to manage our emotions is managing our body budget. As mentioned earlier, our body budget is our interoceptive network that works day and night to regulate things like our heart rate, breathing blood pressure and hormones. If our body budget gets out of whack then we’re going to feel like crap.

Eating junk food, spending too much time on the computer and in front of the TV as well as poor sleeping habits compromise our body budget, which in turn raises our stress levels and ultimately affects our emotional wellbeing.

So how do we keep our body budget balanced?

This is stuff we already know but just by making a few lifestyle changes such as eating fresh food, exercising and getting quality sleep as well as spending time in natural light and green spaces can have an enormous impact on our body budget and enhance our overall sense of wellbeing.

]]>1227Perfection or Excellence?https://menstuff.com.au/2018/02/perfection-or-excellence/
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 01:40:47 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1174Do you think that what you do is never good enough? Do you chronically procrastinate, constantly waiting on more information to make your document perfect, hunt websites endlessly to find the best hotel, or end up ordering pizza because you can’t decide which restaurant to go to?

Perfectionism is something I see a lot as a therapist. While high standards and operating at your best are worthwhile goals, perfectionism can be a major impediment to living your life as you would prefer.

If the answer to the initial questions is “yes,” then not only do you tend towards perfectionism, but you’re at increased risk of stress and anxiety, and less likely to feel content and happy. You home life, social life, even work life all become a grueling feat as you struggle to make everything you do “perfect.” That’s also the case for those around you, who have to decide to allow themselves to get pulled into the vortex, or to stand well clear.

The constant message from society is that one must endlessly strive for perfection, that we can always be better, our clothes whiter, our pasta perfect. Absent are messages that remind us to relax, that working towards being satisfied with what we have is a worthwhile goal. (Who finds that statement hard to accept?)

In fact, those constantly striving for perfection are at greater risk of stress and anxiety – things that lead back into perfectionism. The result can be a spiral where the harder you work at something, the worse you seem to be at achieving it.

Some signs you may be a perfectionist:

You can’t stop thinking about a mistake you’ve made

You’re very competitive and hate to lose

You like to do things perfectly or not at all

You won’t ask for help – that’s weak

You find fault in others and make a point to correct them

You think untidy people are lazy

You’re very self-conscious about making mistakes in front of others

In case you’re thinking that actually this sounds like it might not be a bad thing, let me offer some perspective. There’s a big difference between a high-achiever and a perfectionist. A high-achiever will have high standards that they stick to as well as they can, and make an effort to perform optimally – both things that require self awareness and self-compassion. A high-achiever knows they can’t be perfect every time, and that those times they fall short are times to learn. A high-achiever strives for excellence. A perfectionist is full of self doubt, fearing disapproval, afraid to take a chance, alternately driven to excess or frozen in the face of a task. They see mistakes as failures. And failures prove the self doubt was right.

Dr. Miriam Adderholdt notes in her 1992 book Perfectionism: What’s Bad About Being Too Good?:
There’s a difference between excellence and perfection. Excellence involves enjoying what you’re doing, feeling good about what you’ve learned, and developing confidence. Perfection involves feeling bad about a 98 and always finding mistakes, no matter how well you’re doing.

The good news is that if you’re a perfectionist, you already have the ability to strive. The thing to change is your perception of who you are and what you want – focusing on the you that you prefer to be, and striving courageously for that. It’s one of those things that seems impossible to even understand, let alone achieve: until the day you get it and it all falls into place, and you realise that excellence is personal, and is impervious to external judgement

Here are some tips to help you get started:

Accept that you are human, with a limited set of skills and abilities, and are therefore unable to achieve perfection. It is, in fact, impossible.

List the positives and negatives of perfectionism – the costs and the benefits. Which side do you prefer? Now delete those things on the perfectionist side that can remain if you simply strive for excellence. What does the equation look like now?

Bring awareness to your thinking around tasks. Are you actually working to make yourself happy, or to protect yourself from doubt or criticism? Note the negative basis of your self-talk (no doubt containing a “should” somewhere) and instead cultivate thinking on what you prefer to do or to be in a given situation.

Be realistic. ‘nuf said.

Practice taking risks in situations where you are likely to fall short. Know you will, and use that to practice sitting with that feeling, and taking any criticism as relevant only in that it helps you to learn.

Becoming the person you prefer to be is hard work. It takes courage, honesty, and requires that you trust yourself to know how you want to live. It’s also the common work of psychotherapy, as you learn to identify things you want to change, and get the objective and skilled assistance to achieve it.

]]>1174The stories we tell ourselves narrate our realityhttps://menstuff.com.au/2018/02/the-stories-we-tell-ourselves-narrate-our-reality/
Wed, 21 Feb 2018 01:38:30 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1195I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon recently lost in a book. I was pursuing escapism, not enlightenment. So I was a little shocked to come across a snippet of insight that had me reflecting deeply for days afterwards.

The book was Stephen Tobolowsky’s My Adventures with God (2017). Let’s be clear, Tobolowsky is no philosopher. He is a character actor and musician best known for his role as the annoying insurance agent Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day. Thus my surprise when he delivered me a brain explosion.

Tobolowsky explained how Isaac Newton defined how we perceive the world in three dimensions – length, width and depth. Albert Einstein added to this by including time as the fourth dimension of our experience. Feeling that this definition is still incomplete, Tobolowsky posits that there is a fifth dimension to our human experience – that of narrative. He claims that the stories we tell ourselves causes us to perceive events with unique subjectivity, resulting in our responding to the world through the self-limiting lense of those stories.

The concept of narrative was not Tobolowsky’s invention. Many philosophers and psychotherapists have articulated wonderful insights into the permeating nature of our individual narratives and how the stories we tell ourselves create the world we live in. What was stunningly brilliant about Tobolowsky’s explanation was his unapologetic inclusion of narrative as the fifth dimension of the human experience, bringing our subjective experience into the realm of the scientific.

With science, the discovery of a new fact eliminates an erroneous hypothesis. Sometimes a new fact will overturn what was previously considered a fact. In society we see the re-authoring of social norms, laws and beliefs as a natural evolution. Why, then, should we not consider that our own narratives may need updating from time to time? I think the answer is that our narrative, like the nose on our face, is too close for us to see.

Narrative Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that explores the stories we tell ourselves. The process is respectful and non-blaming and is premised on the individual being the expert in their life. By examining our narrative, we are able to see how some stories no longer serve us well. This gives us the ability to discard or re-author them. Narrative Therapy can be a liberating process of detangling subconscious beliefs and finding new ways of being.

When next you feel stuck or that your options in life are limited, consider the narrative you are holding on to. Is it true or just a perception. Perhaps the next chapter of your life can be beyond your wildest dreams.

]]>1195An Alternate View of Stresshttps://menstuff.com.au/2018/02/an-alternate-view-of-stress/
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 01:34:35 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1197Is stress permeating through every aspect of your life? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities of work, home and social life? Is stress getting in the way of living the life you want? Perhaps you’re not alone.

Feeling stressed is an automatic human response to an external threat. When our brain senses danger, the amygdala kicks into gear and stimulates the production of hormones to carry oxygen to our extremities. This process is commonly called the fight, flight or freeze response. It was this autonomic response that helped our ancestors survive the threats of sabre tooth tigers and the marauding clan approaching from over the hill by preparing them physically to run fast, fight ferociously or hide with great creativity. There are stories of extraordinary physical feats in response to an imminent threat such as the single-handed lifting of a car off an accident victim.

The stress response also benefits cognitive processing by efficiently delivering oxygen to the brain. This helps to find clarity under duress and assists with efficient decision-making in the face of a threat.

So stress can be like a performance enhancer to bring about greater physical and cognitive functioning in response to a threat. Professional athletes have been harnessing this autonomic response for decades with the assistance of sports psychologists.

But prolonged exposure to stress leaves our bodies flooded with adrenalin and cortisol which is harmful and debilitating. When pushed too far or endured for too long, stress decreases performance along with our mood, energy levels and our capacity for compassion.

The paradox of stress being both helpful and debilitating is lost in modern parlance. We automatically assume that all stress is bad. But as much as we’d like to live in a state of enduring serenity, it is difficult to do so in modern society. Stress keeps visiting our lives through a demanding boss, unachievable deadlines, multi-tasking through conflicting demands on our time and energy.

So how can we maintain our response to stress at a level that enhances our performance rather than debilitates us?

There are a number of evidence-based approaches to do this. Some approaches are external to ourselves and involve removing or reducing the stress stimuli. This may include changing jobs, reducing debt, distancing ourselves from toxic people or better managing our diaries. Others are internal approaches which may include changing our expectations of the world around us, changing the way we think, and drawing strength by identifying and drawing on our innate capabilities.

My own research showed an important and significant contributor to coping with stress which is rarely discussed. I studied a cohort of managers working in financial services who all led large teams, were responsible for multi-million dollar budgets and were navigating volatile times in their industry. Alongside in-depth interviews about their lifestyle and responses to stress, I also used a validated scale to measure symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. The behaviours they used to counter stress varied from extreme levels of physical activity such as running marathons and swimming every lunchtime, through daily practices of yoga and meditation, to relying on a cocktail of cocaine and alcohol to get through the day and wind down at night.

The results of my research were counter-intuitive yet stunningly simple. While all participants had elevated levels of stress, their symptoms of depression and anxiety varied greatly. It was no surprise that those self-medicating with drugs and alcohol had extreme symptoms of depression and anxiety. The exercise fanatics had mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety and depression. The stand-out participants were two individuals whose levels of depression and anxiety did not register on the scale. Ironically, they were both mothers of young children who were also responsible for school drop-off and pick-ups, overseeing homework, buying groceries and doing most of the cooking. It was counter-intuitive to me that their symptomology was so much healthier than the rest of the cohort. But on further exploration it became evident that they were not motivated by power or wealth but by an intrinsic sense of meaning and purpose. This gave them a grounding that assisted them to confront stress with increased resilience.

These findings aligned with the premise of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy which he outlined in his book Man’s Search for Meaning (1946). Frankl proposed that meaning-making is necessary for a rich life. Other Existentialists have expanded on this over time and encourage us to tap into an aliveness that goes beyond making a living and putting the bins out – to make something of our existence.

Approaches to countering stress will differ from person to person. Some clients benefit from tools they can use to limit stress from consuming them. With others we have explored finding more meaning and purpose to counter life’s stressors. With others we have explored the causes of their anxieties only to realise that their stress is almost entirely self-induced. What is consistent is that by talking through their stressors clients have found alternate ways to encounter and respond to stress.

]]>1197Facing ‘IT’https://menstuff.com.au/2018/01/facing-it/
Wed, 24 Jan 2018 08:02:18 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1151Do you feel an overwhelming paralysis by a decision you have to make?

Do you ignore things in the hope they will just disappear?

Do you feel like you’re hiding from the world?

For any of you that recently saw the new movie adaptation of Steven King’s book ‘IT’ you would have well and truly experienced that powerful emotion that we call fear.

What made this movie so gripping is the way it reminds us of what happens when we don’t face our fears. Pennywise the clown lured his victims to their doom by honing in on their fears. Pennywise is the manifestation of fear. By avoiding what we need to face things often become much more scary than they often need to be.

What is fear?

Fear is a natural response to the threat of danger. Adrenaline and cortisol are released into body so that we can survive a life-threatening situation. The curious thing about fear is the way that it has adapted to modern our lifestyle. For our Stone Age ancestors fear helped them survive the threat of being eaten by a sabre toothed tiger. Today, fear is much more psychological. We fear change, we fear rejection, we fear success, and we fear not being good enough.

How to get rid of our fears?

In the movie, the characters soon realise that the only way to overcome Pennywise is to face him. When we can look fear in the eyes we take back control of our lives.

How to face your fears?

The first step in facing your fear is to step back from the situation and identify your fear. It’s important to name what exactly you are anxious about.

The next step once you have identified your fear is to ask yourself if your fear is rational or irrational. Genuine fear is when our lives are at risk but worrying about what your boss thinks of you or your success in an exam is really an irrational fear causing you unnecessary anxiety.

The third step is to challenge fear head on. Remember that fear is a natural human instinct and we all have fears. But we always have a choice. We can keep running and allow our fears to control us or we can take charge of our lives. It takes courage to face our fears.

When we finally decide to face our fear head it’s important to go easy. Step up slowly and face the challenge. If you’re afraid of public speaking then offering to do a TED talk in front of an audience of thousands may not be the best place to face that fear. Instead, start with a voice coach. Get comfortable with how your voice sounds and learn a few breathing techniques. Then join your local chapter of Toastmasters and after a while you’ll be ready to face the TED talk. The idea is to increase your exposure until you feel you have overcome your fear.

The take home message from the movie ‘IT’ is that we cannot out run our fear. At some point it always catches up with us. It simply becomes a choice of either taking control of it or being paralysed by it.

]]>1151Are You Part of the Online Dating Revolution?https://menstuff.com.au/2018/01/are-you-part-of-the-online-dating-revolution/
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 08:01:54 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1139Is Grindr and Tinder your ‘go to’ when it comes to seeking out a partner?

Are you meeting people outside your usual social circle?

Perhaps you’ve had an interracial encounter?

New research suggests that online dating is changing not only the way we meet people but also who we meet.

Before it became the social phenomena that it has become we used to rely on our established social network to find a possible partner. A friend of a friend, maybe someone from school or a chance encounter from the local church dance.

According to new research all this is changing with the explosion of online dating websites. In their paper, ‘The Strength of Absent Ties: Social Integration via Online Dating’, Josue Ortega from the University of Essex and Philipp Hergovich from the University of Vienna, examined the social implications of online dating.

The researchers discovered that through online dating new social links are being established that didn’t previously exist. As our networks become more random they create greater racial diversity leading to more interracial marriages.

Another surprising discovery was also made. In exploring the strength of marriages the researchers found that married couples that met online have lower rates of marriage break up than those who met through more traditional ways.

With over 50 million people now signed up to Tinder and 12 million matches made each day it’s not wonder that online dating is now the second most common way that heterosexual couples meet their partners and for homosexuals it is the most popular way. This research suggests that online dating is now a major driving force in creating social change.

To read the article in depth go to http://www.scotecon.org/pdf/2017/2017_15_Sandoval.pdf

There is a quiet, health epidemic spreading across the Western world right now and the word begins with ‘L’. Unfortunately it’s not love but loneliness.

We all dread loneliness, we hate to admit we’re lonely and we tend to look down on people who are lonely.

The challenge we face right now is that our lives are so busy they afford us little time to forge meaningful relationships. Family and work demands take up most of our time and recent research has revealed that these can be some of the loneliest environments that we can find ourselves in. In these everyday situations often our emotional needs and deep sense for connection go unmet.

The strange irony is that while we have never been more connected, thanks to technology, in the last decade the number of single households has risen dramatically and one in three people over the age of 45 report feeling chronically lonely. It also seems to affect men much more than women with a recent UK study reporting that men make up 57% of people living alone between the ages of 45-64.

One of the biggest issue related to loneliness is its long-term health effects. We evolved to be social creatures where our very survival was dependent upon strong social bonds. When we don’t feel that connection a stress response is triggered. The stress hormone cortisol is released and over time this can cause an inflammatory response in the body leading to neurodegenerative disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. A 2010 study by AARP on social relationships argued that loneliness is ranked as high a risk for mortality as smoking.

So what can be done?

Loneliness often leads to social isolation so here a five ways to help you stay connected your social network and wider community.

1.Tame your inner critic.
Often we have a voice inside our head telling us that we’re unattractive, not very interesting and have nothing to say. Pay attention to these negative thoughts and begin to replace them with more compassionate thoughts.

2. Be pro- active.
Put yourself out there and take a risk. Invite someone out for lunch, a walk or a coffee.

3. Get involved.
Think about your interests and explore if there is a community project or a volunteer programme that is looking for someone with your skill set. Alternatively, check out an online social site such as MeetUp to see if there is a group who share your interests or hobbies.

4. Practice emotional honesty.
Open up and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Whether it’s with your partner or close friends, try to move beyond superficial conversations and start to share your feelings, desires, dreams and worries.

5. Consider therapy.
Counselling can be a productive way of exploring self-defeating patterns of relationship behaviour. It can help you change your thinking and explore negative feelings you have abut yourself.

]]>1126Is Your Online Porn Use Spiraling Out Of Control?https://menstuff.com.au/2017/11/is-your-online-porn-use-spiraling-out-of-control/
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 03:03:11 +0000http://menstuff.com.au/?p=1121So you’ve tried many times to limit or control your porn use. You stop. You feel good for a bit and in control of things. Your concentration returns as well as your focus. You may be off it long enough to start feeling more connected to other areas of your life. Then something happens and you find yourself back on it and you binge. Later you feel guilt, shame and familiar feelings of self-blame surface but now you are back on it and you don’t feel you can stop right now. The cycle repeats. Sound familiar?

It’s hard to control your porn use. You obsess over it, you fantasise about it, thinking of using porn excites you in a way that other areas of your life may no longer seem to. You may even have rituals or routines about using porn that feel engrained and habitual. Especially as they may involve familiar objects you regularly use in your day-to-day life such as your smartphone, home or work PC and the ever present internet.

Life does not have to be like this.

Sex or porn ‘addiction’ is not formally recognized as a diagnosable condition and there is a debate about how to assess or classify problematic porn use. Neuroscience has enabled us to better understand how primary centres of the brain related to reward, motivation and memory are affected by addiction. There is recent research, from the University of Cambridge, that identified similar activity in three specific regions of the brain of men affected by compulsive sexual behaviour as would be usually be found in similar studies with drug addicts. You can read more about this on a previous blog post on menstuff.

Compulsive or problematic use of sex, or porn, is commonly understood as occurring when someone has difficulty limiting or controlling their sexual thoughts, feeling and behaviour – to the extent that this is affecting or impacting other areas of their life, such as work, leisure time, finances, relationships or family.

One aspect that often comes up with people I consult, is how over time you can become de-sensitised to the images and material that you initially found stimulating and rewarding. You find yourself ‘needing’ to access different and newer forms of online pornography to get that same kind of stimulation that you are searching for. For some there may be concerns around how others would respond if they were aware of their porn use. This can understandably raise powerful feelings of shame or guilt and anxiety or even paranoia over being ‘found out.’

In this search for stimulating material, a person may also start to use other forms of porn or sexual activities such as live streaming, sexting or even using dating sites for hook ups.

New research by a leading team at the University of Cambridge has further developed on our understanding of these patterns of compulsive or problematic sexual behaviours and their links to the proliferate amount of porn material available on the internet. In this research they studied the behaviour of sex ‘addicts’ and ‘healthy’ male volunteers undergoing tasks.

Dr Valerie Voon’s findings published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, found that sex ‘addicts’ – seem more driven to seek out new and more novel sexual images than the norm. These findings are relevant and give more understanding into how online porn, with its endless supply of new material could enable porn use to become more compulsive and problematic.

“We can all relate in some way to searching for novel stimuli online – it could be flitting from one news website to another, or jumping from Facebook to Amazon to YouTube and on,” explains Dr. Voon in the article. “For people who show compulsive sexual behaviour, though, this becomes a pattern of behaviour beyond their control, focused on pornographic images.”

The researchers also reported the sex ‘addicts’ were more susceptible to environment ‘cues’ linked to sexual images. The research showed that sex ‘addicts’ were more likely to choose cues associated with sexual and monetary rewards. The study notes how this supports the theory that apparently innocuous ‘cues’ in a person’s environment may ‘trigger’ their online porn use.

“Cues can be as simple as just opening up their internet browser,” Dr. Voon comments in the article. “They can trigger a chain of actions and before they know it, the addict is browsing through pornographic images. Breaking the link between these cues and the behaviour can be extremely challenging.”

The researchers also identified the sex ‘addicts’ experienced a decrease in activity in a brain region involved in reward anticipation and response to new events when they viewed the same sexual images repeatedly. The study notes how this supports the theory of ‘habituation’, where the addict finds the same stimulus less and less rewarding. This may mean that in order to prevent ‘habituation’, the sex or porn ‘addict’ is driven to seek out a supply of new and different sexual images or material on the internet.

“Our findings are particularly relevant in the context of online pornography,” Dr. Voon is quoted in the article. “It’s not clear what triggers sex addiction in the first place and it is likely that some people are more pre-disposed to the addiction than others, but the seemingly endless supply of novel sexual images available online helps feed their addiction, making it more and more difficult to escape.”

This important piece of research supports and validates what many users of porn may already experience and possibly the nature of the issues you may struggle with on a daily basis as you attempt to manage and control your behaviour. The reality is that the internet and technology is a part of regular life or even your work activities. Yet these aspects of your daily life may be a ‘cue’ or trigger for you to use porn time and again despite your best intentions to stop.

Neuroscience has enabled us to understand that the processes of addiction are more complex than previously thought and treating addiction means more than simply going cold-turkey and you are fixed. Addiction affects the brain regions related to memory and reward which reinforces and underlines the behaviour.

For someone struggling with problematic porn use this could indicate they may have ‘learnt’ to cope with life and make themselves feel better about things through compulsive patterns related to their porn use.

This could mean that in order for you to bring control back into your porn use, the underlying issues that led you to start to cope with the difficulties of life in this way also need to be addressed and faced. If you can allow yourself the time, effort and space to work on your issues and concerns with a health professional, in a confidential and non-judgemental environment, then you may be able to develop new insight and understanding into your behaviour. This process may then enable you to discover different options in how you cope with what life throws at you rather than automatically finding yourself turning to porn.